Judges Love Star Trek Too

A lot of lawyers are geeks. A lot of geeks are lawyers. So it should come as no surprise that a lot of judges are Star Trek fans and they aren’t afraid to show it. Below are my favorite Star Trek quotes…from the bench:

First, our judicial system aspires to be Vulcan, not human or Klingon:

“Your role is to determine fact[s]. Nobody can tell you what to do in that area. That’s entirely your decision. If you get to the issue of damages, I will instruct you as follows: number one, you should determine not only that portion of the case but all [of] this portion of the case without using bias or prejudice; in other words, we want you to be—and I’m going to date myself a little bit by saying this. Do you remember Star Trek, the original one with Mr. Spock? Mr. Spock could look at things totally logical. He was not influenced by passion. He certainly wasn’t influenced by prejudice, and that’s … how you need to look at a case. You need to look at a case for the facts as you see them. You need to look at the case for the law. You apply the facts to the law, and that’s how you come up with a decision. You don’t allow sympathy to enter into your decision.”

The court: Yes. I understand. And I’m emotional. I understand that, too. Were you a fan of Star Trek?… And you said McCoy, the doctor who was so emotional who just ran off the wall at the drop of a hat whenever something emotional would occur. And you had Spock always standing there, placidly not affected at all by the emotion of the situation. And that’s what we want in this case. We understand that it’s not easy. It’s not easy. But to the extent that you possibly could dedicate yourself to doing exactly that, in other words in being fair, you don’t say, well, I’ll be fair to the People.”

FN5. Although the court declines plaintiffs’ invitation to speculate as to whether it is a worse injury for an individual salmon to be cut by sharp metal edges or die on dry land, Pls.’ Reply Brief 12, the court will note that in this case the court is most concerned with the survival and recovery of the species, and not the comfort of any individual salmon moving its way up the ladder. Put another way, “logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the … one.” Star Trek II; The Wrath of Khan (Paramount Pictures 1982).

Appropriately weighty principles guide our course. First, we recognize that police power draws from the credo that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Second, while this maxim rings utilitarian and Dickensian (not to mention Vulcan FN21), it is cabined by something contrarian and Texan: distrust of intrusive government and a belief that police power is justified only by urgency, not expediency.

FN21. See Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Paramount Pictures 1982). The film references several works of classic literature, none more prominently than A Tale of Two Cities. Spock gives Admiral Kirk an antique copy as a birthday present, and the film itself is bookended with the book’s opening and closing passages. Most memorable, of course, is Spock’s famous line from his moment of sacrifice: “Don’t grieve, Admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh …” to which Kirk replies, “the needs of the few.”

This is also particularly true for Calvin’s argument, contrary to his contention the California codes are invalid, that the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) is the “supreme codified law of the planet” which makes his separate claim to all property in this dissolution matter superior to any purported community property claim. With apologies to the former television series Star Trek, we decline “to boldly go where no [rational analysis] has gone before.” ( Star Trek: Episode Introduction monologue.)

In re Party Masters, Inc., 1992 WL 106259, 1 (Bkrtcy.N.D.Ill.,1992)

“Star Trek” has been a part of American culture during the last half of the Twentieth Century. To paraphrase its famous opening lines, this action is the voyage of two Star Trek convention promoters into litigation before this bankruptcy court; they explore and mix strange legal theories and ask the Court to seek out justice and do equity in this lawsuit of their creation; they boldly go where very few wise litigants have gone before—both parties assert contradictory and conflicting theories based on oral contract. Like the Star Trek characters battling in outer space, these parties struggle in the inner void left by their mutual failure to write down and document the terms of their agreement.

Fourth, “Beam me up, Scotty” is often quoted, but what makes this quote special is the detail in the citation:

Perhaps Homo sapiens will experience a Darwinian epiphany to take better care of their home before they return to it. The alternative is a Captain Kirk moment: “Beam me up, Scotty!” FN62

FN62. “Beam me up, Scotty!” is a catch phrase which made its way into pop culture from the science fiction television series Star Trek. It comes from the command Captain Kirk (played by William Shatner) gives his chief engineer (played by James Doohan). Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, when he needs to be transported back to the Starship Enterprise. James Doohan, Beam Me Up, Scotty: Star Trek’s Scotty–In His Own Words (Pocket Books 1996).

Fifth, the Klingon Dictionary may replace Black’s Law Dictionary as the go-to dictionary for legal definitions:

The district court declined to give the proposed instruction because the meaning of deference would not be “clear to a lay person.” But “deference” is not Urdu or Klingon; it is a common English word.

(The dissent)

I must, however, acknowledge that the majority is quite correct in intuiting that, unsurprisingly, there is no Klingon word for “deference.” See generally Marc Okrand, The Klingon Dictionary (Star Trek 1992).

Sixth, even Star Trek technology has made appearances in judicial decisions:

We first examine the first branch of the easement criteria, the open, visible, and adverse requirements for a prescriptive easement. We have no trouble concluding that the County’s use of the glide paths was open and visible. Aircraft regularly passing overhead during their landings and takeoffs are hard to miss. And defendants have offered no evidence that any Stealth fighters operated on runway 11/29 or that any of the aircraft used the infamous Romulan cloaking device.FN11

FN11. For those unacquainted with the television series “Star Trek,” this reference is to a device used by a civilization of beings called Romulans which rendered their spacecraft invisible to the naked eye.

Seventh, don’t ever confuse Star Wars and Star Trek:

Faith v. Clark, 2012 WL 2376327, 14 (E.D.Cal. 2012)

THE WITNESS: Dr. Masters, among the forensic community, is considered—essentially equivalent to a John F. Kennedy in terms of his integrity, competence and ability. For younger folks in the jury, probably that don’t know about John F. Kennedy, don’t have the same feeling, probably better to think of Dr. Masters as Obi Wan Kenobi, which my daughters, the last of the great Jedi warriors portrayed by Alec [Guiness] in Star Trek.

THE COURT: Star Wars.

THE WITNESS: Star Wars—thank you very much.

And, finally, I had to share this, the second-oldest Star Trek reference I could find and the first to take judicial notice of Star Trek’s cultural impact:

As the “Star Trek” era is ushered into our lives, this Court must be prepared to keep its perspectives progressive and its definitions flexible, or else this Commonwealth will fail to acquire modern, technological manufacturing operations.

Jessica has been litigating business and IP disputes for the past decade. During that time, she’s dealt with clients, lawyers, and judges who have varying degrees of appreciation for the challenges of managing discovery in an electronic age. Until the fall of 2011, she was an attorney at a large, Texas-based law firm, where she represented clients in state and federal court nationwide. That fall, she made a long-desired move back to the Midwest and is now a partner at Hansen Reynolds Dickinson Crueger LLC, a litigation boutique based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she continues to litigate while also consulting with business and law firms on e-discovery issues (before, during, and after litigation arises).

[…] down parties (or their lawyers) for improper behavior or arguments. Even better, as discussed in my post on judges and Star Trek, judges can use footnotes to be funny (my favorite is the Romulan […]